


nameless bodies in unremembered rooms

by gamblignant8 (maltesecaptainfalcon)



Series: Starwatcher [1]
Category: Vast Error
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Vast Error - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maltesecaptainfalcon/pseuds/gamblignant8
Summary: Tazsia Poemme goes to the one place she can when her anger turns her mind to static.





	nameless bodies in unremembered rooms

Hours of tame undercard matches gave way to the crescendo. Five lowbloods, convicted of stealing and other petty crimes, all trying to be the first one ever to pin Tazsia Poemme.

They wanted blood, and now they’re getting it. Low hues spattered across the canvas of the ring like an abstract painting, her mace finishing a graceful arc with rough collisions into ribs and femurs. The organizers got mad at her for finishing matches too early — _people_ _pay for these, Taz_ — so she spend the first few minutes going easy, springing up to the ropes to knock challengers down and keeping your stance low and elbows wide to keep from getting ganged up on. It's been long enough of that that her opponents are keeping their distance, some jumping out of the ring to grab foreign objects.

A troll with a broken horn, seeping rusty clay blood from a busted lip, comes at her with a chair and gets her neck snapped in one sickening motion for the effort. The second challenger gets his pipe snatched from his hand with a force that breaks his wrist and then a blow to the back of his head that puts him out for good, as another bell rings out ringside.

The announcer is rambling, voice echoing in the arena, but she doesn't hear as the third and fourth trolls come at her at once. She grabs them both by the neck and slams their heads together with a  _crack_ that rings out across the arena. One goes down immediately. The other, bleeding a dark sagebrush olive from a huge gash in the side of his head, stumbles up to her and tries to take a swing that misses wildly, causing a burst of laughter from the rabid crowd as he loses his balance, falls to the the ground, and gets his misery ended by a stomp to the neck.

One left. He crumbles to the ground, valencia orange welling up in bruises, and starts begging at her feet. The crowd erupts in boos and heckles. A few food wrappers and cups with dregs of lukewarm beer get thrown into the ring in an attempt to hit the coward. Taz steps closer to his prostrate form and goes down on one knee. The crowd draws in a breath, ready to riot if mercy is shown. They needn’t have worried. She lines up with the back of his neck and performs an immediately lethal elbow drop, soaking her vest in warm hues.

A effluence of lusty cheers pour out from the gore-crazed mass in the gymnasium, but Taz doesn’t acknowledge them. She never does. So many grievance slaughterers step into the ring for glory, wearing wild masks and putting on personas, reaching for the microphone after a victory to play up their story and bathe in the adulation or derision. As for Taz? The crowd can cheer, the crowd can jeer, the crowd doesn’t even need to be there. She’s not doing it for them. She climbs through the ropes and walks straight back to the lockers, brushing past an interviewer that knows better than to try her, making eye contact with no one.

There’s nobody else in the dim changing room. Hers was the last match of the night. No longer being watched, Taz crumples to the floor, leaning her back against the row of lockboxes. She stares into the distance, looking well beyond the far wall, then draws in a breath. She holds up her hands to see the swirls of blood on her knuckles. Olive, ochre, taupe, all mixed in an ugly swill. None of her own — there hardly ever is. None of the color she’s really thinking of, the color she saw when it all went wrong.

The only thing that pierces the steely calm is the shaking of her hands. She tries her hardest to get them to keep still. She’s a killer and a warrior, she should be steady after every engagement. But no matter how much focus she puts in, the tremble doesn’t stop. Her ire raises at this, and she balls her fists up, claws digging hard into her palm in the first pain she’s felt since she slipped out of the flow of war. Now she’s mad at herself, too, for  _ this _ being what’s bothering her.

After everything she’s ruined, after everything she’s done, a stupid tremor is the thing that sets her off?

It’s too much to bear. She slams her fist and forearm hard into the lockers behind her, leaving a nasty dent, letting out a frustrated yell. She repeats the motion until the locker is crushed and her arm is singing out in pain at the repeated impact with metal, giving her something to focus on that isn’t just what a monster she is.

Taz sits there breathing in the stale air, cherishing the throb of complaint from her limb. She pushes herself up to her feet — using the hurt arm, of course — slings her bag over her shoulder without looking, and walks out the back exit of the arena. The chucklevoodoo in her eyes and the blood still soaking her causes the spectators and loitering smokers in the alley to give her a wide berth, which is exactly what she wants right now. She barely sees, barely thinks, just starts moving into the cool evening. Wind blows on her bare arms and she doesn’t feel it, she hasn’t for sweeps. She’s on autopilot now, putting one foot in front of the other for almost an hour without thinking a single coherent sentence. There’s only one place to go when she feels like this.

* * *

Albion held the lid of the kettle steady as she poured out a mug of tea, setting it aside and bringing the spoils — plus a wooden bowl filled with hot water and a cotton washcloth — to the small table in front of the comfortable méridienne where her moirail sat, still not having made eye contact with her.

“It’s jasmine. It will calm you,” Albion said. Taz lifted the mug and gave it a tentative sniff and an unimpressed sip. The oliveblood seemed content with that and began to wring out the warm washcloth, turning on Taz,  “Let me get some of this blood off of you, love.”

Taz made a muffled noise of assent and felt a small, delicate hand take hers. She closed her eyes as Albion gently circled the wet cloth across her skin, moving from doting on her bruised knuckles up her arm. A melodic voice interrupted her reverie.

“Was it a difficult day of matches? I haven’t seen you bruised like this in quite some time.”

Taz exhaled.

“No.”

She kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see Albion’s expectant face, eyes a full play of serene inquisitivity waiting for her to delve into her  _ feelings _ . She can’t articulate them right now, and if she was too honest she risked being coddled, always a danger when in proximity to Albion Shukra.

But the expected pressing for more never came, and Albion leaned in to take off her filthy vest, slipping it off her broad shoulders, warm breath passing close to her face. Taz opened her eyes to see Albion folding up the garment neatly and setting it on the table, again dipping the washcloth in water and wringing the blood out, turning back and meeting Taz’s eyes with a small smile.

As Albion began to get the dried blood off Taz’s collarbone and shoulders, focusing intently with pursed lips, Taz hazarded a question.

“Albion. Am I a bad moirail?”

Albion paused for a nigh-imperceptible moment, one of the few signs of surprise she ever let herself display, but returned to work right after.

“Whatever would — close your eyes again, I’m going to wash your face — make you say that?”

“A few times a blink, I’m here for you to dote on me,” Taz mumbled, feeling the warm cloth lift the layers of blood, sweat, and greasepaint from her forehead, “but I’ve never felt like I’ve taken care of you. You’re always asking what’s on my mind and what’s bothering me, but I never know what upsets you.”

Albion made a musical little  _ hmm _ at that, and finished up Taz’s face, placing the washcloth back in the bowl and moving close to her. Albion lifted a hand to brush across Taz’s now-clean cheek, sliding her short-nailed hands back and into Taz’s mass of tangled hair. She pulled Taz into a soft embrace, voice now reverberating into her shoulder.

“You really needn’t worry,” Albion said softly near her moirail’s ear. “You keep forgetting that I  _ enjoy _ caring for you. And I’ve been blessed with a singular purpose, one that gives me great serenity. It’s both my duty and my pleasure to help others where I can.” As she said this, she moved a palm in circles across Taz’s back, working out some tension from the firm muscles there.

Taz tried to breathe — despite being able to run a marathon with ease, she always seemed low on air on days like this — and returned the embrace, and there they sat for a time, surrounded by the sweet smells of cardamom and incense. One woman who could break anyone with her hard edges and another who seemed determined never to crack. The evening outside grew darker still, and the candles bathed them both in a glow that was letting Taz think clearly again.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Taz said, after what felt like an age.

“Hm?”

“How you put away all your anger and frustration. Doesn’t it all build up into a big spiral?”

Albion pulled back to sit up and gave the larger girl a half-smile look that someone less familiar might think condescending.

“I don’t think so. Perhaps we will see, one day, if I am tested.” Albion ran a hand through her own tresses of hair. “But I know you will be there if I ever do slip.”

Taz laughed a bit at this, her first genuine one in who knows how long. “It’s hard to imagine you angry.”

“Quite. Now get up and get a bath,” Albion said, standing up and brushing out the wrinkles in her sweater, “I’ll fix some dinner for us both.”

Taz fell backwards in protest. “Let me guess, some sort of awful cornucopia of grains and vegetables?”

Albion picked up the dirty vest and the washing bowl and made her way out of the room. “Yes, and you’ll enjoy it. Unlike you,  _ miss-raw-strip-steak _ , I know what seasoning is.” The sing-song nature of her voice betrayed her sarcasm. Some would find it infuriating, but something about this girl could never make Taz mad.

Taz stared at the doorway Albion left through for quite a few beats, feeling the dull pain return to her right arm. She dragged herself up and made her way to a bath as the sounds of prep in the kitchen began.

Another day, another trophy, five fewer criminal trolls eating up finite resources.

Even with her moirail, she's not sure how much longer she can keep doing this.

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to get something short out to show my admiration for these girls and my feelings on their moirallegiance. And make the new tag less lonely.


End file.
